


Tuesday's Children

by INMH



Series: hc_bingo fanfiction fills 2020 [7]
Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Babies, Drama, During Canon, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Child Endangerment, Kidnapping, Rescue Missions, Strong Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:55:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24814939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: “Forgive me for being worried that we might snap some kid’s neck during this little rescue-mission.”
Series: hc_bingo fanfiction fills 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1789369
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Tuesday's Children

**Author's Note:**

> Kindly ignore the canon-related logistical issues in this story; I just wanted all the Deputies and the much-neglected Burke to be together.

“I think I’m gonna be sick.”  
  
Rook nodded. “Yeah, I’m feeling it too.”  
  
“There are so many ways we can fuck this up,” Burke whispered as they loaded the boxes into the car. “They’re babies. We can’t reason with them the way we could with older kids. If one of them just starts crying for no damn reason, they’re gonna keep right on crying until they don’t want to anymore.”  
  
“Then we’re just going to have to move fast,” Hudson said. She was packing blankets, bags, clothes into the gap between the car-seats so that the boxes wouldn’t slip off the seat.  
  
Pratt had objected in the beginning to using boxes to hold the babies instead of proper infant car-seats. “If we have to stop short, or if we have to speed off because we’re being chased by Peggies-”  
  
“Yeah, yeah, I know it’s not safe Mr. Paramedic,” Hudson had snapped. “If you’ve got such a problem with it then pull a couple of car-seats out of your ass that we can put them in. Until then, we’re just gonna have to work with the boxes and be careful on the road.” Upon seeing Burke’s confused look, Hudson had rolled her eyes. “Pratt originally trained as a paramedic; he gave it all up because cops get laid more.” Here, Pratt had flipped her off with both hands. “So he can be an absolutely _bitchy_ little nit-pick when it comes to safety measures.”  
  
“You’ll be glad for all the times I bitched at you to wear your seatbelt when you don’t end up going through the windshield of your truck,” Pratt had sniped in response. “And forgive me for being worried that we might snap some kid’s neck during this little rescue-mission.”  
  
“All that’s left is Faith and Joseph,” Hudson had shot back. “The Peggies are getting antsy, and I’d rather endanger some kids a _little_ during a rescue attempt than waste time. God forbid we wait until it’s too late and find out that the Peggies force-fed them poisoned Kool-aid because they realized they were about to lose.”  
  
Rook had stiffened at that. “You really think they’d do that?”  
  
“Jim Jones did,” Burke had snorted. “They literally forced the parents at gunpoint to feed their babies poison. The ones who refused were shot, or had poison forced down _their_ throats by someone else. Either way, the kids ended up dead.”  
  
Hudson jerked her thumb at Burke and nodded her agreement. “I didn’t think they’d have the balls to take over an entire county, but they did that. I’m not underestimating these fuckers anymore.”  
  
They had recently learned of a location where some of the infants stolen by the cult were being housed. The plan was to slowly, carefully, use a back-road to drive up to the building; Rook would snipe any guards present with an arrow if necessary. Rook and Hudson would sneak in and locate the kids while Pratt and Burke drove the cars (they couldn’t take just one, there wouldn’t be enough room) up to a window they believed was large enough to move the boxes through.  
  
It was going to be tight. There were a lot of cult patrols in the area, and Faith was on the warpath now; she’d send hell down onto their heads if she got word that the children they’d stolen were now being stolen back.  
  
The drive was tense. It was dark, early evening slowly starting to turn to night, and Rook dreaded seeing headlights coming down the road. She white-knuckled the door-handle, eyes straight ahead, occasionally glancing into the rearview mirror to double, triple, quadruple-check that Pratt and Hudson were still behind them. Burke was stoic as he drove, maybe because they weren’t being chased by trucks and having RPGs shot at them this time.  
  
“This is it,” Burke muttered, slowing the car to a stop. “Good luck. Give the sign when you’re ready.”  
  
Rook nodded, opening the door, getting out, and then closing it as silently and cautiously as she could before scuttling off.  
  
There were a few houses in a little cluster, all clumped together in what must have once been a cul-de-sac. One house had been burned to the ground, probably during the takeover; the other houses were still standing, and Rook was uneasy at seeing that the lights were out in all of them. She could not, after all, assume that the houses were unoccupied.  
  
Hudson appeared a few feet to the right, keeping pace with Rook. They approached the house they were looking for, the one they had reliably been informed contained the children, and pressed themselves to the wall on either side of the front door. Hudson nodded- Rook returned it, and then slowly opened the door, peering inside.  
  
Nothing.  
  
No Peggies on guard, no dogs, no nothing.  
  
Rook slowly pushed the door open, relieved when it didn’t creak. She stepped into the house and started at a crawling pace down the hallway, drawing back whenever a board began to squeak beneath her boot. She kept her gun up, just in case someone went and popped around a corner and a firefight started. Rook rounded the corner into the first doorway on her left, gun high-  
  
-and then her eyes popped wide, mouth falling open slightly in shock.  
  
 _Well, shit!_  
  
Lo and behold, it was a room full of babies in cribs and bassinets.  
  
Rook turned and waved to Hudson, motioning towards the room and flashing a thumbs-up. Hudson nodded, and then proceeded down to the next door in the hallway; Rook crept further into the room and peered into each little bed, relieved to see every one occupied with sleeping infants, their names taped to the rails and ridges:  
  
 **AUDREY B.**  
 **JASON N.**  
 **CECILY S.**  
 **NICOLE R.**  
 **CARTER H.**  
 **LAWRENCE** **B.  
SIMON L.**  
 **AMY N.**  
 **RILEY D.**  
  
Nicole was the oldest at about a year and a half; Audrey was clearly the youngest, and Rook was disturbed to realize that this particular baby could hardly be more than a few months old- she couldn’t have been born more than, literally, _days_ before the county was overtaken. She was just a newborn, and she’d been stolen from her parents, from the people who would know better than any cultist what their daughter’s needs were. What if she had asthma? What if she had allergies? What if she had some heart-condition that required medication?  
  
Rook’s blood boiled. These people had no right, no _fucking_ right at all.  
  
Hudson stepped into the room, carefully closing the door behind her. She came up to Rook and whispered, right into her ear, “I checked the other rooms: These are the only kids here. One minder asleep in the other room.”  
  
“Did you kill them?”  
  
“No.” Hudson sniffed. “Tempted, but no. A month or two ago I would’ve had it in me to choke a Peggie in her sleep, but not right now.”  
  
Remembering how Hudson had been after she’d been freed from John’s bunker, Rook believed it.  
  
Still, it was surprising that they’d only left one person in charge of nine babies. Rook’s very limited experience with babies began and ended with a few encounters with her cousin’s daughter as a teenager, but she had to figure one baby was difficult enough to look after on your own. Was the cult just incompetent enough to think a single person could manage nine babies alone? Or were they simply understaffed after so many Resistance victories?  
  
At least it should make it easier to get the kids out without a fight.  
  
Rook crept over to the window and opened it, waving her arm out the window. Soon enough, Pratt and Burke pulled the cars up under the window so slowly and silently that she dared to hope no one would ever know they were here. “Nine,” She whispered.  
  
“Got it,” Pratt responded before they headed back to the cars for the boxes.  
  
Rook waited, gripping the windowsill nervously. Every moment they waited was another opportunity for things to go tits-up, and where babies were involved it was _really_ vital that things go according to plan. Or at least that things didn’t go completely wrong. She turned to see Hudson examining the babies. “Do you know who their parents are?”  
  
“Yeah,” Hudson said. “Carter’s parents are dead. We found them shot outside their house. Amy’s mom died in Fall’s End. Pratt said he saw Riley’s dad and uncle at Jacob’s base, so fuck only knows if they’re still alive.”  
  
Shit. Somehow it hadn’t even occurred to Rook that some of these kids might not have parents anymore. The Resistance would care for them, but the long-term damage was done: Some of these children were now orphans that would only know their parents in stories, people that had died before they were old enough to properly remember them. Eden’s Gate had done that to them out of some batshit notion that the sinners who refused to be converted must be destroyed, and Rook hated them for it.  
  
Burke came up to the window and carefully maneuvered a box through. It _just_ cleared the dimensions of the window without catching, and Rook was relieved. “Alright,” She whispered, “Pick a baby, any baby.”  
  
One by one, Hudson would pick up a baby and set it into the box, which would then be passed through the window to Pratt and Burke, who would load them into the cars. Hudson seemed to be going from oldest to youngest: Nicole went first, then Carter, then Riley, then Cecily, then Jason. Some of them, like Simon, fussed a little as they were picked up; others, like Riley, slept like a rock. But none of them cried out or properly woke up, and that was a relief beyond words.  
  
Until Audrey, that is.  
  
Rook picked her up with the same quick, careful movement that she’d picked up the other babies- but froze when a whimper rose from the bundle in her arms, and stiffened in horror and panic when that cry eventually developed into a wail that was horribly, viciously _loud_ and conspicuous in the otherwise total silence.  
  
“I’m coming, I’m coming!” A weary voice called from the other room.  
  
 _Shit!_  
  
Rook panicked. “I got it!” She called, without thinking.  
  
Pratt’s jaw dropped, horrified; Burke’s hand flew to his gun, eyes wide; Hudson covered her mouth, eyes squeezing shut. Audrey’s wails were the only thing that filled the deafening silence of those few moments.  
  
And then, from beyond the door: “Thanks. It’s been almost a full day since the last shift-change. Praise the Father.”  
  
“Praise the Father,” Rook returned. After a moment of continued silence, Rook’s shoulders sank with relief; Hudson half-collapsed against the wall, Burke against one of the cars, and Pratt slumped against the windowsill.  
  
Well, there was her answer: Critically understaffed it was.  
  
“Hurry,” Rook whispered, rushing Audrey over to the window and handing her out to Pratt. “Hurry, hurry, hurry, oh God she might come to check up on us.”  
  
“Is that the last one?” Pratt hissed.  
  
Rook and Hudson did a frantic check of the cribs and bassinets, peering inside and lifting up blankets- they even checked underneath them just to be sure no babies had crawled beneath them. Hudson went through the window first, dropping to the ground and hurrying to her and Pratt’s car; Rook hurried after her, stumbling through the window and nearly face-planting in the dirt below, saved only by Burke catching her around the waist as she fell. Once everyone was where they needed to be, babies secured in their boxes, they rolled forward quietly around the cul-de-sac until they managed to pull out onto the road, where they picked up speed.  
  
“Holy shit,” Burke croaked weakly as they accelerated, Pratt and Hudson’s headlights shining through the back window. “Holy shit. That went better than-”  
  
“ _Shh!_ ” Rook hissed, reaching back to soothe Audrey, who was still squalling. “Don’t you dare say it. Not until we’re back in Fall’s End. Not until we _know_ we’re clear. If you jinx us, my last act will be to end you.”  
  
Burke nodded.  
  
The ride back was far less tense than the ride to, but at least this time they were heading to a fortified area reclaimed by the Cougars rather than into the lion’s den (pun unintended). By the time they rolled into the outpost, Rook finally shut her eyes for a second and allowed herself to relax, opening them only once the car rolled to a stop. “Okay: _Now_ you can say it.”  
  
Burke snorted, and didn’t say anything.  
  
Rook hauled herself out of the car, winding around to the back door and opening it up. A few Cougars were jogging over to help carry the babies into the cabin they’d set aside for them. “We’ll start poking around, trying to see which of ‘em, uh… Well, which of ‘em still have parents,” Whitehorse had finished darkly when they’d first formed the plan, a shrug punctuating the grim conclusion.  
  
Some of these kids were probably orphans now- another good reason to beat Joseph Seed into submission.  
  
Hudson and Pratt had gotten out of their cars, and were starting to pull the boxes out. One of the babies Hudson ended up picking up out of his box, hefting him onto her hip- Rook was vaguely certain it was Riley. “He woke up halfway here,” Hudson sighed, adjusting the giggling baby. “I was so worried he was going to start crying and wake up the others, but instead he just started laughing.” She shook her head, chuckled. “Damn, babies are weird.”  
  
“This kid spent the whole time screaming and the others didn’t wake up at all,” Burke remarked as he pulled Audrey (still screaming) and her box from the back-seat, setting it on the ground beside the others. “Who the hell even knows, there’s so many reasons I chose not to have kids and the endless screaming is one of them.”  
  
“Aw, well-” Rook was cut off, startled as someone bumped into her back. She whipped around, seeing only a dark blur of a person as he yanked the wailing Audrey out of her box and clutched her to his chest. She was off-kilter for a second from the surprise of it, but quickly steadied herself and connected the dots: This man, it seemed, was Audrey’s father. “Yours?”  
  
The man nodded, tears streaming down his face. She didn’t recognize him, but there were people being rescued from the cult or warily coming in from the wilderness they’d escaped to every day. “Thank you,” he wheezed, rearranging Audrey in his arms. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”  
  
“No problem,” Rook said softly, nodding gently and quickly stepping aside to grab one of the crates and hustle off to the cabins. The baby inside (Simon, they’d been careful to keep the labels with the babies when they’d moved them) blinked up at her silently, either too disinterested or too tired to cry. “We’ll find your parents too,” she mumbled, setting the box on the table beside Jason and Cecily’s.  
 _  
Assuming they’re not dead._  
 _  
Or being driven crazy by Faith._  
  
Rook sighed and rubbed her eyes.  
  
“Well, we’ll cross _that_ bridge when we come to it.”  
  
Hopefully all these kids would have _someone_ to go back to, at least.  
  
For now, she’d just be happy that one of them did.  
  
-End


End file.
